Just got back from our holiday in Vietnam which was organised by Ruby of Asia Pioneer. I contacted Ruby by email over a year ago to make an enquiry and her communication, planning and responsiveness has been outstanding. She planned a tour tailored to what we wanted to do/see – Hanoi, Halong bay, Hue, Hoi An, and Ho Chi Min. We didn’t have to worry about anything as it had been arranged with great efficiency and all ran like clockwork. The quality of the hotels was excellent and our guides Tong,Tan,Nam and Thai were all very knowledgable and entertaining. Our drivers were also amazing and kept us regularly supplied with lots of ice cold water. I can honestly say that this was the best holiday we have ever had and I can’t thank Ruby enough for planning such a great itinerary for us. It was also lovely to meet her in person when she took the trouble to visit us in our hotel in Hanoi. If you are thinking of arranging a tour in South East Asia I can highly recommend this company.

I’ve worked in and around the tourism and hospitality industry for 20 years as both an hotelier and journalist, and have had some amazing – and abysmal – experiences in terms of tour companies, but Asia Pioneer raised the industry bar to an entirely new level. From my initial email enquiry back in January, through to farewells at Hanoi airport in May, the service, attention to detail and personalisation was exceptional. Quyen created a bespoke itinerary that took us on a whistle-stop 10-day journey to Ho Chi Minh City, the Mekong Delta, Siem Reap and Angkor Wat, Hanoi and Halong Bay, which pressed all the right buttons in terms of my holy grail of travel experiences – local culture, people interaction and exquisitely authentic food. I could wax lyrical about the trip for far longer than the allowed word count, but the highlight – apart from the scenery, history, people, cuisine – and meeting Quyen for lunch on our last day in Hanoi – was his passion for what he does and desire to showcase Indochina in the best possible light. Other tour operators would do well to take a leaf out of Asia Pioneer’s book. Outstanding in every respect – thank you Quyen; Laos and Myanmar next for sure!

In May my wife,myself and another couple took a trip to Vietnam that was organized by Ms. Kata Trans of Asia Pioneer travel of Hanoi. Our trip took us from the Mekong Delta to Hanoi with stops and side tours in NhaTrang, Dalat, Danang, Hoian, Hue, and Halong Bay. The trip lasted 17 days, with accommodation, tour guides, private car transport, train, and airplane travel involved.
Pioneer Travel did an exceptional job coordinating the entire trip. To ensure everything was satisfactory, Pioneer Travel provided us with a Mobile phone, and kept in constant contact with us.
The Tour Guides were English Speaking, very knowledgable of their areas. Nothing was to much trouble for the Guides. My wife had an unfortunate accident in the hotel, the 1st day we were in country, which necessitated a hospital visit in Ho Chi Minh City, and subsequent follow up visits to a hospital in Danang, and Hanoi. Kata at Pioneer Travel, organized those visits, provided transportation and an interpreter at no additional cost to us. We can not speak highly enough of this Companies attentions to detail, professionalism, and obsession with ensuring our satisfaction. The itinerary they organised for us, gave us the maximum exposure for the time we had, and feel it was excellent “value for money”. The four of us would have no hesitation in recommending Asia Pioneer to anyone J Montague Surfers Paradise Queensland Australia

We returned recently from a private tour organized by Mr. Lam for two families with teenagers traveling to Cambodia and Vietnam. We had an excellent 18 day holiday. All of our guides friendly, knowledgable and very well organized. There were very flexible and ensured that our group was happy and satisfied with our itineraries. Every detail of the trip went smoothly including airport pickup, tours and hotels. The quality of the hotels were excellent. We would highly recommend Asia Pioneer for anyone looking to travel in this region. Mr. Lam was very responsive and took care of every detail quickly and accurately. Would definitely use them again!!

I just want to say thank you to Quyen and all his crew at this great firm. Trustworthy, accountable, and hard working folks made our recent adventure to Vietnam and Cambodia wonderful. Count on them to fulfill your expectations.

We were pleasantly surprised by Mr. Duong Dai Lam (“LAM”)’s attentiveness to our needs via email for months before the trip. He was very professional, flexible, and accommodated all of our needs for our 4 day, 3 night (homestays) trekking tour of Sapa Valley.

We were picked up at our hotel in Hanoi by one of the Asia Pioneer people. He escorted us to the train station and then made sure we got on the train in the exact cabin. (We splurged to buy out the whole 4-berth cabin for 2 of us…it was WORTH IT! No one to bother you and you can lock the door while you are sleeping, only $144 per person total).

Mr. Lam had booked us with a local Sapa tour company called “Trails of Mountains.” Our guide picked us up with a driver at 5am in the morning to drive 1 hour through the mountains to a hotel where we could take a shower and rest before our first day of trekking. It was surprising easy.

Mr. Nga was one of the most knowledgeable, fun, athletic, and kindest tour guides I have ever met. He absolutely made our trip. We had a private tour with Mr. Nga, which meant we did a lot of hiking (some strenuous parts, but worth it)….we went off the beaten path and really experienced Sapa. He seemed to know all of Sapa Valley like the back of his hand. It was amazing!

Mr. Nga was a great translator during the homestays as well. The homestays were fascinating! I would caution that they are provincial in that there is no air conditioning, little running water, and/or plumbing in some places. However, that is what we expected and didnt mind at all.

Hands down, the food in the Homestays were probably some of the best meals I have EVER eaten. Everything in the meal was fresh from the garden or farm (I mean everything, meat, fruits/vegetables, grains, herbs). DELICIOUS!

All in all, the tour was amazing. I would highly recommend to everyone. Mr. Lam and Mr. Nga were absolutely fantastic. Ask for them 🙂

The only thing I would caution about the booking with Asia Pioneer: it is better to pay everything before you start the tour, we paid 50% before we arrived in Vietnam and had to pay the rest while waiting at the Hanoi station for the train to Sapa (it was sort of a hassle).

Overall, a fantastic experience, we would definitely book with them again! Thanks Lam and Nga!

I first heard about Asia Pioneer at tripadvisor and I decided to write an enquiry email right away. Best choice ever! 🙂 Got my first answer from Kata (our contact person for the whole time) within 24 hours and the first offer was very good. But until we could finally book the trip we had to do a lot of chances – no problem for Kata at all, she put in whatever I asked her to in our program. About the hotels we totally trusted her knowledge. We just wanted to have 3 to 4 star hotels. And I have to say every hotel that we stayed at was perfect for our needs, breakfast was always included. As were the entrance fees and meals if mentioned in our program.

About our tour: we did a 3 1/2 weeks Vietnam and Cambodia tour – all organised by Kata. In total we had 3 (international) flights, two trainrides (Hanoi – Sa Pa retourn) , a night at a boat in Halong Bay and the rest in “normal” hotels.
Everything worked out perfectly – we got a mobile phone at the beginning of our trip to call Kata at anytime if problems would occur. We had to do that once and within minutes our problem was solved, eventhough it was already 10 pm!

Every tour guide we had made a perfect job and tried to fullfill every of our wishes. It was no problem to stop by somewhere, leave early or late, whatever we wanted too do. Íf we wanted to buy typical stuff we got help negotiating the prices.
In Sa Pa our tour guide cooked a meal in a homestay house for us – a thing we wouldn’t have asked for as we wouldn’t have know that this would be possible! And we loved it!

All in all, I would not consider a second about booking my trip with Indochina Pinoeer again, I would just do it. We talked to people who did everything on their own, it was neither cheaper nor more relaxing or anything. It was just nice to have somebody taking care of us wherever we were.

We met Kata once in Hanoi – she extra came to our breakfast restaurant in the mornging – and it was really nice to finally see the person, I’ve been writing to emails for about 5 months.

It’s hardly to say what we liked most: but Sa Pa should be a must on every Vietnam trip and I would definitly go to Cambodia too, if I’m there, as it’s not a very long journey and absolutely worth it. Halong Bay was also beautiful too, of course. Vietnam in general is a very beautiful country with lots of different things to do and see, I wouldn’t want to miss anything that we did on our trip! It was just perfect as it was!

Thank you again, Kata and everybody else that made our trip unforgetable!